Russia Slain by Spain

Russian and Spanish fans scuffled in Vienna before game time. In Moscow, security was tight with an extra 4000 cops on the beat. It was all for not as Russia went down 0-3 to Spain on Thursday, dashing the hopes of a nation. Will little Guus Evgenevich Gorodnikov look to change his name? Ger Clancy, aka The Irishman, explains why the Russians fell and why Russian football has a bright future.

After all the thrills, hype, endless column inches and rave reviews by the pundits, Russia’s Euro 2008 adventure came to an end tonight in a soaking wet Vienna. Tired, leaden-footed and without inspiration, Russia were thumped 3-0 by an excellent Spanish team who now look odds-on favourites to lift the trophy on Sunday night. Spain almost entirely dominated the match and were deserving winners. For the Russians the tournament is over. All that remains are their goodbyes to Austria-Switzerland and the journey home. But they can hold their heads high and be immensely proud of their achievements. For the first time since the birth of the modern Russian state in 1991 a Russian team has made an impact in what is by far the world’s most popular sport. Forget ice-hockey and the Olympics; only football will get everybody onto the streets. For football is closest to the Russian heart. Tonight those hearts were broken, but when their tears dry they’ll know their team has been a credit to the country and has put Russia back on the world football map. Tonight’s game was a bridge too far for their young and inexperienced team, but their football has lit up the championship and will be long remembered after Sunday’s final.

Russia began the game with Spain with just one change from the side that beat Holland, with Vasilli Berezutskii replacing the suspended Denis Kolodin. Spain inexplicably kept faith with David Silva and left Fabregas on the bench. This fact alone must have warmed Hiddink’s heart in the pre-match. Unfortunately that decision would be reversed very quickly and Russia would pay dearly for it.

The game started badly for the Russians with the Spanish entirely dominating the opening ten minutes. However Berezutskii held his own against Torres and eventually Zyrianov, Semak and Zhirkov began to win some ball in midfield and move it around at bit. However, this turned out to be the limit of Russian endeavour. Russia looked lead footed from very early on with Arshavin and Saenko making little or no forward runs as they had done in previous games. Indeed, the only Russian forward player who kept any pace with the Spaniards was Pavlyuchenko, who would plough a lone furrow all night. For the next twenty minutes Russia exchanged tit-for-at piecemeal attacks with the Spanish, but never looked like scoring or dominating.

On 33 minutes the defining act of the game occurred. David Villa went down with an injury and was replaced with Fabregas, Spain’s mercurial midfielder who bizarrely wasn’t picked from the start. From there on in the Spanish took control of the centre of the park. It was now just a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ for the Spaniards.

And the when duly came on 55 minutes when Xavi played a one-two with Senna to crack home a brilliant strike past Akinfeev. Russia were now totally out of the game. The second blow arrived on 73 minutes when Guiza finished after an excellent through-ball from the dominant Fabregas. Fabregas then set up David Silva for the 3rd goal nine minutes later. The stats rarely lie –Russia, one shot on target, Spain had eleven. For Russia it was Goodnight Vienna.

There are many reasons for Russia’s defeat, and most of them will have merit in the argument. But the simple, most obvious fact and most compelling reason is that Russia are simply not as good as the Spaniards. After all the hype–which undoubtedly had an effect, especially on Arshavin, who played very poorly–Russia came up against a very skillful and highly experienced Spanish team, who, in spite of the best efforts of their incompetent, arrogant coach, are now on the cusp of greatness and a deserved European Championship trophy. Russia were also exhausted. I hate to say I told you so, but Saturday’s match with Holland blew every spare effort Russia had. There was just nothing left in the tank. Newspaper speculation about player transfers certainly was no help, nor were tales of children being named after coaches and players! For the young Russian team all this was new territory and they almost certainly buckled under pressure.

So, where to now for the Sbornaya Rossii? The great thing about football is that there’s always another game and another tournament around the corner, and the qualifiers for the World Cup begin in September. Hiddink will remain in charge, and though Russia won’t win it, we’re sure of another thrill-a-minute adventure in South Africa in Summer 08. To all Russia fans broken-hearted tonight – dry your tears and smile. Russia shall return!

Do Svidaniya, Rossiya!!

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Until recently, Sochi was mostly viewed in the context of Russia’s anti-homosexuality laws. No more. Stories of corruption and rights abuses in the preparation of the Olympics are all the rage. Joshua Yaffa’s recent article in Business Week is a must read on the subject. The BBC has also produced an hour long audio documentary, the “Putin Project,” surveying corruption, housing demolition, labor abuses and international affairs in the context of Sochi. There are numerous of other treatments pushing the subject to saturation. Given the coverage, it’s a legitimate question whether another expose on Sochi is necessary. Enter Putin’s Games, an hour long documentary directed by Aleksandr Gentelev and produced by Simone Baumann. It’s a comprehensive film that covers similar ground as Yaffa and the BBC. Its value is less in the information and more in giving a visual sense of the monstrosity of Sochi and its various heroes and villains. What’s more, the film has gotten some extra unsolicited exposure. Baumann was approached three times and offered 600,000 euros to can the film.

Why is this film so dangerous? It’s hard to say. In many ways it’s a standard expose of corruption in Russia. But then again, it’s about Sochi, Putin’s personal megaproject. Putin’s Games makes this personal touch clear by treating Russia’s Olympic bid as the president’s personal mission. Apparently, however, the idea didn’t originate with him. Having the Olympics in Sochi was first floated by former ski champion and Russian Olympic Committee chief Leonid Tyagachev while he and Putin were skiing at Krasnaya Polyana.

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As regular readers can see, my blogging has been sparse over the last few weeks. I just finished a three week teaching blitz of a Western Civilization course at Santa Monica High School. The class was part of Santa Monica Community College’s dual enrollment program which allows high school students to take classes for college credit. The class was everyday, 8-11 a.m. I haven’t woken up so early since I worked in a stove factory over fifteen years ago.

Rushing through 500 years of history has never been so daunting. The class was enjoyable and the students remarkably bright. One thing that struck me about the high school is how it resembled a prison. I guess Gilles Deleuze was on to something when he wrote that modernity initiates,

The organization of vast spaces of enclosure. The individual never ceases passing from one closed environment to another, each having its own laws: first the family; then the school (“you are no longer in your family”); then the barracks (“you are no longer at school”); then the factory; from time to time the hospital; possibly the prison, the preeminent instance of the enclosed environment. It’s the prison that serves as the analogical model: at the sight of some laborers, the heroine of Rossellini’s Europa ’51 could exclaim, “I thought I was seeing convicts.”

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So teaching was the main reason why blogging has been sparse. It will continue to be so. On Thursday, I leave for Israel for two weeks. I’m hoping to do so research for a few articles on the Russian diaspora there. My big hope is to meet up with some Israeli neo-Nazis for an article for the newly relaunched eXile Online. (Yes, if you haven’t already heard, the eXile is back in virtual form. Mark has left Russia and word is the eXile is going to be less Russia focused. Look for its verbal assassins to set their sites on more victims.) If the Israeli Nazi thing doesn’t pan out, I’m sure my travels will present a number of other topics. So stay tuned.

Though I haven’t been keeping up with the Russian news as well as I normally do, there have been a number of interesting stories that have appeared. Some of them are directly Russia related, others are bit tangential.

First article to catch my notice was a report on the exhumation of a mass grave containing around 300 bodies in an asphalt plant in Chechnya. The grave was discovered in 2000 but wasn’t uncovered until now. The site dates to the Second Chechen War and according to the report “likely contains civilian victims of an attack by Russian forces.” The report of this mass grave follows the announcement a week earlier of another one found in Grozny containing an estimated 800 corpses.

Open Democracy has published several articles on Russia as part of their collaboration with Polit.ru. Football fans should check out Lyubov Borusyak’s “Russia, Football and Patriotism.” Granted connecting football to patriotism, or what I’d rather call nationalism, is not new. Sport is a uniting force and it is no surprise that in Russia’s so-called “age of stability” sport is making a national comeback. Russia now appears as a winning nation to many of its citizens, and this is only reinforced by the fact that its teams have some victories under their belts. But as Borusyak points out, its not just that Russian teams are winning. In fact, the ultimate crown often alludes them. This however doesn’t dampen the link between national enthusiasm and sport. Just the opposite actually. As she notes, “There are two kinds of patriotic rhetoric. On the one hand, our people are winning because Russia is ‘rising’. On the other, our people are losing because the whole world is against us. Until 2008,the second discourse predominated, as there were not many successes. But this year the situation changed.”

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With much of the world reeling from capital’s cyclical curse of overproduction, speculation bubbles, or to put it more kindly, “market corrections,” it begs the question of Russia’s economic prognosis. Unlike the American economy, the Russian economy has not experienced shocks of similar magnitude. It’s banks aren’t collapsing, being bailed out or raided by the state. Corporate profits aren’t taking a hit. Announcements of layoffs, buyouts, and wage slashing aren’t ubiquitous. Like so often, American capitalists who love to spit on the state are the first to run to it for a handout. It all proves once again that its socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. As Robert Borosage reminds us, Wall Street’s “losses are socialized; their profits are pocketed.”

This is not to say that Russia’s economy is all bread and circuses for the average Russian. Inflation is a particular bugaboo that is not just being fueled by high oil prices and general global inflation in commodities. Russian inflation more comes from the fact that, as Dmitri Travin notes, “millions of people, from oligarchs to cleaners really are benefiting from oil revenues.” Of course, the spread of petrodollars contains the seeds of its own destruction. Especially when you consider its effects on manufacturing. Travin writes,

From the point of view of manufacturing,this wealth is a terrible curse. An expensive ruble makes the goods we manufacture more expensive by comparison with imported goods. If the Central Bank does not stop the ruble from rising, many Russian producers will lose their competitive advantage and cease to exist. And along with them, many jobs will disappear. GDP will stop growing, and parts of the country will be plunged into crisis. In the long term, the Russian people’s unexpected wealth will turn into poverty.

What God giveth, God (might) taketh away. Again, the inevitability of overproduction is a real bitch to tame.

The losses of global economic crisis are not equal. There are winners and losers. Take General Motors, for example. GM executives plan to make some “difficult decisions” in regard to its American workforce. This includes, according to the New York Times, “a 20 percent reduction in payroll for salaried workers, elimination of health care for older white-collar retirees, and suspension of G.M.’s annual stock dividend of $1 a share.” GM, like most car companies, are reeling from the slide in the American market. No one wants their big gas guzzling SUVs and two-ton trucks anymore. As a result, GM plans to make $10 billion in cost cuts. And where will these cuts come from? Why labor and benefits of course.

At the same time GM is slashing labor costs in the United States, it’s looking to expand in Russia. GM is currently in negotiations to up its production in Russia, where its market share has increased by 2 percent over the last year. Given that Russia has a skilled, cheap workforce it’s ripe for exploitation. The average wage for a Russian autoworker is about $1000 a month with few, if any, benefits. An American autoworker makes an average of $5000 a month and that’s if you don’t include benefits. With GM sales rising coupled with the benefit of slashing labor costs, its no surprise that they and many other automakers can’t get to Russia fast enough.

Russian and American autoworkers know the score. Class war is heating up in both countries. In the States, auto union are fighting against the “two-tier wage system” which looks to slash staring wages by half. In Russia, autoworkers are increasingly understanding their labor power and are putting collective pressure on automakers. This pressure is expected to grow. As Aleksey Etmanov, the leader of a Ford auto union in St. Petersburg, said in a recent interview,

The creation of trade unions will increase. Even now there is simply a wave of new trade unions appearing. Today in our trade union there are approximately 1000 people, this is half of the workers of plant. In Taganrog the works manager hides in order not to obtain information about the creation of the trade union. Certainly, the pressure everywhere is being stepped up, and repression from the side of employers is increasing, they are sacking activists. Nowhere do the employers want to live according to the law (including Russia) but we are fighting back. In Toyota in the Petersburg area the manager, who, by the way, went there from “Ford”, is himself putting the workers in such conditions that we are confident, that very soon there will a trade union there too.

We are actively participating in the setting up of new trade unions in other factories of our industry, and we are developing inter-district unions of the Russian automobile industry, which, according to our plans, will be linked up as members of an organization covering all the car factories of the country, and we think we can do this towards the middle of next year. The Ford trade unionists are the most experienced elements in this association, and without us, probably the association would not have appeared. But all over the world the car workers trade unions are the strongest. The joint-combine committee draws nearer…

It is clear that the strength of the union is not only in the individual enterprise but is also in all the surrounding workplaces. Therefore we want to be combined with other trade unions, both with the Russian and in other countries. In particular, we closely collaborate with the international association of metalworkers. Now our interests can also be represented abroad. For example, when we struck, our American friends came to examine the headquarters of company “Ford” in Detroit…

Finally, its not just Russian autoworkers who are organizing. So are Russian prisoners. ON July 6 over 100 former Russian political prisoners gathered for the First Congress of Political Prisoners in Moscow. The result was the formation of the Union of Prisoners, which in the words of Edward Limonov, “will gather, not only political prisoners, but will defend the rights of all prisoners and ex-prisoners.” Limonov also proposes the creation of A Day of Prisoners for September 14. He also plans on turning his National Bolshevik Party toward organizing prisoners. Limonov clearly knows his history. Prison is indeed a transformative revolutionary experience. Any bonafide Old Bolshevik did a stint in prison or exile. Prison hardened the Bolshevik soul and spirit. Apparently many of Limonov’s young charges are undergoing the same process. As Limonov says of Aleksei Makarov, who was recently released from prison. “Aleksei wasn’t yet 18 when he was arrested two years ago. He grew greatly in prison.”

If the Natsbol’s slogan is indeed “Yes, to death!” then nothing will harden that political will more than prison.

Russian prisons are of course nightmares. They always have been and continue to be so. For a run down on the conditions in prisons and the treatment of prisoners in Russia, I recommend checking out Robert Amsterdam’s excellent coverage of the issue. In particular, check out Grigory Pasko’s three part series “Life Behind Bars.”